𝐁𝐎𝐄𝐋𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐃𝐎𝐙𝐄𝐍𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐂 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐒 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐔𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐒𝐀𝐘

 

Boelter's "No Kings" slips, fake police car, Boelter and wife, silicon mask, memorial to murdered couple, more police evidence

PBS Jun 17, 2025 12:46 PM EDT

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The man charged with killing one Minnesota lawmaker and wounding another in what prosecutors have described as a meticulously planned attack, had dozens of apparent targets, including officials in at least three other states.

Vance Boelter allegedly made it to the homes of two other legislators on the night of the attacks, but one was on vacation and the suspect left the other house after police arrived, acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said Monday.

All of the politicians named in his writing were Democrats, including more than 45 state and federal officials in Minnesota, Thompson said. Elected leaders in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin said they, too, were mentioned in his writings.

Investigators say Boelter appeared to spend months preparing for the shootings — the latest in a string of political attacks across the U.S.

In Minnesota, Boelter carried out surveillance missions, took notes on the homes and people he targeted, and disguised himself as a police officer just before the shootings, Thompson said.

“It is no exaggeration to say that his crimes are the stuff of nightmares,” he said.

Boelter surrendered to police Sunday night after they found him in the woods near his home after a massive two-day search. He is accused of fatally shooting former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their home early Saturday in the northern Minneapolis suburbs.

Authorities say he also shot and wounded Sen. John Hoffman, a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, who lived a few miles away.

Federal prosecutors charged Boelter, 57, with murder and stalking, which could result in a death sentence if convicted. He already faces state charges, including murder and attempted murder. At a federal court hearing Monday in St. Paul, Boelter said he could not afford an attorney. A federal public defender was appointed to represent him, and he was being held without bail pending a court appearance next week.

Manny Atwal, his lead attorney, declined to comment, saying the office just got the case.

Boelter had many notebooks full of plans, Thompson said. Underscoring what law enforcement officials said was the premeditated nature of the attacks, one notebook contained a list of internet-based people search engines, according to court records.

But authorities have not found any writings that would “clearly identify what motivated him,” Thompson said. He said it was also too soon to speculate on any sort of political ideology.

Democratic Rep. Esther Agbaje, whose district includes parts of Minneapolis, said she stayed with friends and family over the weekend after learning that her name appeared on the list of targets.

In texts, the suspect said he ‘went to war’

Authorities declined to reveal the names of the other two lawmakers whose homes were targeted but escaped harm. Democratic Sen. Ann Rest said she was told the suspect parked near her home early Saturday. She said in a statement that the “quick action” of law enforcement officers saved her life.

Boelter sent a text to a family group chat after the shootings that said: “Dad went to war last night … I don’t wanna say more because I don’t wanna implicate anybody,” according to an FBI affidavit.

His wife got another text that said: “Words are not gonna explain how sorry I am for this situation … there’s gonna be some people coming to the house armed and trigger-happy and I don’t want you guys around,” the affidavit said.

Police later found his wife in a car with her children. Officers found two handguns, about $10,000 in cash and passports for the wife and her children, according to the affidavit.

Just hours after the shootings Saturday, Boelter bought an electric bike and a Buick sedan from someone he met at a bus stop in Minneapolis, the federal affidavit said. Police found the sedan abandoned on a highway Sunday morning.

In the car, officers found a cowboy hat Boelter had been seen wearing in surveillance footage as well as a letter written to the FBI, authorities said. The letter said it was written by “Dr. Vance Luther Boulter” and he was “the shooter at large.”

The car was found in rural Sibley County, where Boelter owned a home.

Coordinated attacks on legislators

The Hoffmans were attacked first at their home in Champlin. Their adult daughter called 911 to say a masked person had come to the door and shot her parents.

Boelter had shown up carrying a flashlight and a 9 mm handgun and wearing a black tactical vest and a “hyper-realistic” silicone mask, Thompson said.

He first knocked and shouted: “This is police.” At one point, the Hoffmans realized he was wearing a mask and Boelter told them “this is a robbery.” After Sen. Hoffman tried to push Boelter out the door, Boelter shot him repeatedly and then shot his wife, the prosecutor said.

A statement released Sunday by Yvette Hoffman said her husband underwent several surgeries after being hit by nine bullets.

After hearing about a lawmaker being shot, officers arrived just in time to see Boelter shoot Mark Hortman through the open door of the home, according to the complaint. They exchanged gunfire with Boelter, who fled into the home before escaping, the complaint said. Melissa Hortman was found dead inside, according to the document. Their dog also was shot and had to be euthanized.

Search for motive continues

Writings recovered from the fake police vehicle included the names of lawmakers and community leaders, along with abortion rights advocates and information about health care facilities, said two law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the ongoing investigation.

Friends and former colleagues interviewed by the AP describe Boelter as a devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and went to campaign rallies for President Donald Trump.

Boelter also is a former political appointee who served on the same state workforce development board as Hoffman, records show, though it was not clear if they knew each other.

Durkin Richer reported from Washington and Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Michael Biesecker and Eric Tucker in Washington, John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, Rio Yamat in Las Vegas and Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.

𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐀𝐒 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐎𝐓𝐀 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐔𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝐀𝐒 "𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆," "𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐎𝐔𝐓" 𝐅𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐀𝐍

 

Vance Luther Boelter

Two decades before he was a murder suspect in Minnesota, Vance Luther Boelter was an employee at a Gerber plant in Fort Smith, Arkansas, an easy-to-get-along-with, upbeat boss, a former co-worker said Monday.

Daniel Thueson, now senior pastor at Springdale, Arkansas First United Methodist Church, labored alongside Boelter in the labeling and packaging area for roughly 18 months and liked him.

"I was the team leader and he was the supervisor, so we worked hand-in-hand a lot," he said.

At that stage in life, they had similar Christian outlooks and personalities that meshed.

"We were both easygoing, high-energy people," Thueson said. "I always thought he was very, very kind and gentle and generous and graceful to people. I never saw him lose his cool. He was somebody who's always very encouraging."

Boelter, 57, was arrested Monday and faces state and federal murder charges in attacks that killed a Minnesota lawmaker and wounded another. Law enforcement officials say he meticulously planned the attacks, carrying out surveillance missions, taking notes on the homes and people he targeted and disguising himself as a police officer just before the shootings.

At the time Thueson worked with Boelter, neither man was Methodist. Thueson was a student at Faith Bible Institute in Alma, Arkansas and part of a non-denominational church. He believes Boelter's church was independent as well.

Theologically, "we were both pretty close to fundamentalist," he said.

Before and after shifts, Boelter sometimes shared details about his personal life.

He was living in Muldrow, Oklahoma, according to a news account at the time; in May 2002, his wife had given birth to a daughter.

"A lot of times the conversation would steer towards our faith and our family. I know that it was important to him that his wife stay home and raise the kids. I believe they were homeschooling the kids," Thueson said. "He was pretty devout in his faith."

Boelter worked at the Gerber plant for roughly three or four years, Thueson said.

He subsequently went to work for Johnsonville Sausage and then Del Monte Foods, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The two traded occasional emails but eventually lost touch after Boelter journeyed north, Thueson said.

In 2009, Thueson headed to Dallas to study at Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology, but returned to Arkansas following graduation. Over the years, he has led United Methodist congregations in Alma, Charleston, Mountain Home and Springdale.

He was cooking breakfast for his wife Saturday morning when he received news alerts about the murder of Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark.

A few hours later, he learned the suspect's name.

Two days later, he's still trying to fathom what took Boelter down this path. He said he is thinking about the two lives taken and two other victims who were shot repeatedly but survived.

"There's going to be so much pain and grief from that and my heart breaks for them and for their families and for their communities," he said.

He's concerned, as well, about Boelter's children.

He said he is also wondering why Jenny Boelter was traveling in a car over the weekend that reportedly contained money, passports and a weapon.

"My heart breaks for whatever led them down this path because this is not how we represent our faith, this is not how you share the gospel of Christ, this is not who we are as people that follow Jesus," he said.

Thueson said he is concerned by the tensions he sees in the country and hopes steps are taken to dial them down.

"Instead of using this as an opportunity to point fingers, let's use this as an opportunity to examine ourselves and what we might be doing to lead ourselves or lead somebody else down a similar path. Instead of building walls and being divisive, let's find ways to focus on what we have in common," he said. "As people created in the image of God, we need to be able to see that in each other."

"Even if we don't agree on how to live out our faith or interpret Scripture, we can all agree that we are called to follow Jesus and that (his) ultimate law is love," he said. "Jesus tells us to love our neighbor and love our enemy, because those are ways that we show our love for God."

Information for this report was provided by Randal Seyler of the River Valley Democrat-Gazette and The Associated Press.

𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃 𝐔𝐏 𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐀 (𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐄) 𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐇 𝐏𝐀𝐃𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐘, 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐘 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐀𝐆𝐎

 submitted by Rene Torres

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗡 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗧𝗛 𝗣𝗔𝗗𝗥𝗘 𝗜𝗦𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗪𝗔𝗦 𝗔 𝗦𝗘𝗔 𝗢𝗙 𝗕𝗘𝗔𝗨𝗧𝗜𝗙𝗨𝗟 𝗗𝗨𝗡𝗘𝗦

                  submitted by Rene Torres

𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐎𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍, 𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇 𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐒

 

Apple Just Pulled the Plug on the AI Hype. Here’s What Their Shocking Study Found

New research reveals that today’s “reasoning” models aren’t thinking at all. They’re just sophisticated pattern-matchers that completely break down when things get tough

By Rohit Kumar Thakur

We’re living in an era of incredible AI hype. Every week, a new model is announced that promises to “reason,” “think,” and “plan” better than the last. We hear about OpenAI’s oY1 o3 o4, Anthropic’s “thinking” Claude models, and Google’s gemini frontier systems, all pushing us closer to the holy grail of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The narrative is clear: AI is learning to think.

But what if it’s all just an illusion?

What if these multi-billion dollar models, promoted as the next step in cognitive evolution, are actually just running a more advanced version of autocomplete?

That’s the bombshell conclusion from a quiet, systematic study published by a team of researchers at Apple. They didn’t rely on hype or flashy demos. Instead, they put these so-called “Large Reasoning Models” (LRMs) to the test in a controlled environment, and what they found shatters the entire narrative.

In this article, I’m going to break down their findings for you, without the dense academic jargon. Because what they discovered isn’t just an incremental finding.. it’s a fundamental reality check for the entire AI industry.

Why We’ve Been Fooled by AI “Reasoning”

First, you have to ask: how do we even test if an AI can “reason”?

Usually, companies point to benchmarks like complex math problems (MATH-500) or coding challenges. And sure, models like Claude 3.7 and DeepSeek-R1 are getting better at these. But the Apple researchers point out a massive flaw in this approach: data contamination.

In simple terms, these models have been trained on a huge chunk of the internet. It’s highly likely they’ve already seen the answers to these famous problems, or at least very similar versions, during their training.

Think of it like this: if you give a student a math test but they’ve already memorized the answer key, are they a genius? Or just good at memorizing?

This is why the researchers threw out the standard benchmarks. Instead, they built a more rigorous proving ground.

The AI Proving Ground: Puzzles, Not Problems

To truly test reasoning, you need a task that is:

Controllable: You can make it slightly harder or easier.

Uncontaminated: The model has almost certainly never seen the exact solution.

Logical: It follows clear, unbreakable rules.

So, the researchers turned to classic logic puzzles: Tower of Hanoi, Blocks World, River Crossing, and Checker Jumping.

These puzzles are perfect. You can’t “fudge” the answer. Either you follow the rules and solve it, or you don’t. By simply increasing the number of disks in Tower of Hanoi or blocks in Blocks World, they could precisely crank up the complexity and watch how the AI responded.

This is where the illusion of thinking began to crumble.

The Shocking Discovery: AI Hits a Brick Wall

When they ran the tests, a clear and disturbing pattern emerged. The performance of these advanced reasoning models didn’t just decline as problems got harder — it fell off a cliff.

The researchers identified three distinct regimes of performance:

Low-Complexity Tasks: Here’s the first surprise. On simple puzzles, standard models (like the regular Claude 3.7 Sonnet) actually outperformed their “thinking” counterparts. They were faster, more accurate, and used far fewer computational resources. The extra “thinking” was just inefficient overhead.

Medium-Complexity Tasks: This is the sweet spot where the reasoning models finally showed an advantage. The extra “thinking” time and chain-of-thought processing helped them solve problems that the standard models couldn’t. This is the zone that AI companies love to demo. It looks like real progress.

High-Complexity Tasks: And this is where it all goes wrong. Beyond a certain complexity threshold, both model types experienced a complete and total collapse. Their accuracy plummeted to zero. Not 10%. Not 5%. Zero.

This isn’t a graceful degradation. It’s a fundamental failure. The models that could solve a 7-disk Tower of Hanoi puzzle were utterly incapable of solving a 10-disk one, even though the underlying logic is identical. This finding alone destroys the narrative that these models have developed generalizable reasoning skills.

Even Weirder: When the Going Gets Tough, AI Gives Up

This is where the study gets truly bizarre. You would assume that when a problem gets harder, a “thinking” model would.. well, think harder. It would use more of its allocated processing power and token budget to work through the more complex steps.

But the Apple researchers found the exact opposite.

As the puzzles approached the complexity level where the models would fail, they started to use fewer tokens for their “thinking” process.

Let that sink in.

Faced with a harder challenge, the AI’s reasoning effort decreased. It’s like a marathon runner who, upon seeing a steep hill at mile 20, decides to start walking slower instead of digging deeper, even though they have plenty of energy left. It’s a counter-intuitive and deeply illogical behavior that suggests the model “knows” it’s out of its depth and simply gives up.

This reveals a fundamental scaling limitation. These models aren’t just failing because the problems are too hard; their internal mechanisms actively disengage when faced with true complexity.

Inside the AI’s “Mind”: A Tale of Overthinking and Underthinking

The researchers didn’t stop at just measuring final accuracy. They went deeper, analyzing the “thought” process of the models step-by-step to see how they were failing.

What they found was a story of profound inefficiency.

On easy problems, models “overthink.” They would often find the correct solution very early in their thought process. But instead of stopping and giving the answer, they would continue to explore dozens of incorrect paths, wasting massive amounts of computation. It’s like finding your keys and then spending another 20 minutes searching the rest of the house “just in case.”

On hard problems, models “underthink.” This is the flip side of the collapse. When the complexity was high, the models failed to find any correct intermediate solutions. Their thought process was just a jumble of failed attempts from the very beginning. They never even got on the right track.

Both overthinking on easy tasks and underthinking on hard ones reveal a core weakness: the models lack robust self-correction and an efficient search strategy. They are either spinning their wheels or getting completely lost.

The Final Nail in the Coffin: The “Cheat Sheet” Test

If there was any lingering doubt about whether these models were truly reasoning, the researchers designed one final, damning experiment.

They took the Tower of Hanoi puzzle: a task with a well-known, recursive algorithm and literally gave the AI the answer key. They provided the model with a perfect, step-by-step pseudocode algorithm for solving the puzzle. The model’s only job was to execute the instructions. It didn’t have to invent a strategy; it just had to follow the recipe.

The result?

The models still failed at the exact same complexity level.

This is the most crucial finding in the entire paper. It proves that the limitation isn’t in problem-solving or high-level planning. The limitation is in the model’s inability to consistently follow a chain of logical steps. If an AI can’t even follow explicit instructions for a simple, rule-based task, then it is not “reasoning” in any meaningful human sense.

It’s just matching patterns. And when the pattern gets too long or complex, the whole system breaks.

So, What Are We Actually Witnessing?

The Apple study, titled “The Illusion of Thinking,” forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth. The “reasoning” we’re seeing in today’s most advanced AI models is not a budding form of general intelligence.

It is an incredibly sophisticated form of pattern matching, so advanced that it can mimic the output of human reasoning for a narrow band of problems. But when tested in a controlled way, its fragility is exposed. It lacks the robust, generalizable, and symbolic logic that underpins true intelligence.

The bottom line from Apple’s research is stark: we’re not witnessing the birth of AI reasoning. We’re seeing the limits of very expensive autocomplete that breaks when it matters most.

The AGI timeline didn’t just get a reality check. It might have been reset entirely.

So the next time you hear about a new AI that can “reason,” ask yourself: Can it solve a simple puzzle it’s never seen before? Or is it just running the most expensive and convincing magic trick in history?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~𝐕𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐄𝐋𝐓𝐄𝐑~𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐆𝐔𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐄𝐒

             

American gun heroes: Jack Ruby, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, David Chapman, Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray and John Wilkes Booth

In these United States of America, where the National Rife Association writes our gun laws while woefully misinterpreting the Second Amendment to the Constitution, we just love a good ol' assassination or assassination attempt.

Vance Boelter joins the NRA Hall of Shame after allegedly rifling to death Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, while putting multiple bullets into State Senator John Hoffman and his wife.

Boelter, who "gave his life to Jesus" at age 17, has been a preacher of the Gospel ever since, even traveling to the Middle East to share the teachings of Jesus and explain to militant Islamists that "violence wasn't the answer."

Spreading the Word has taken Boelter to "North and South America. . . I've been to the Middle East, I've been to Eastern Europe, and I’ve been in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I’ve never been in a country before like the DRC that has had so much taken away. I hear the history, and it hits my heart. So many people, so many countries have taken, taken, taken,” he said in 2022.

Boelter has also been critical of the LGBTQ.

“There’s people especially in America, they don’t know what sex they are, they don’t know their sexual orientation, they’re confused. The enemy has gotten so far into their mind and their soul,” he said in a sermon at a Pentecostal church in the eastern DRC.

It remains to be seen if Boelter's gun crimes will rise to the notoriety of John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan and David Chapman, folks with three names or two repetitious names, I was able to retrieve from memory without consulting Google or Wikipedia.

Boelter may wind up as a mere sideman or footnote to gun history like Jack Ruby or Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme as blame will certainly be laid at possible mental illness, not his easy access to the sacred rifle.

"𝐍𝐎 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒" 𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈-𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐌𝐏, 𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈-𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐒 𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐘

 

Boise, San Diego, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Washington, DC, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, Boston, St Paul, Seattle, Honolulu, Des Moines, Anchorage, Portland

~~~~~~~~~~"𝐓𝐄𝐗𝐀𝐒 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃," 𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐄 𝐑𝐀𝐘 𝐕𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐀𝐍, 𝐃𝐎𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐄, 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟑

                                                                                

San Antonio floodwaters, June 2025

Well there's floodin' down in Texas

All of the telephone lines are down

Well there's floodin' down in Texas

All of the telephone lines are down

And I've been tryin' to call my baby

Lord and I can't get a single sound

Well dark clouds are rollin' in

Man I'm standin' out in the rain

Well dark clouds are rollin' in

Man I'm standin' out in the rain

Yeah flood water keep a rollin'

Man it's about to drive poor me insane

Well I'm leavin' you baby

Lord and I'm goin' back home to stay

Well I'm leavin' you baby

Lord and I'm goin' back home to stay

Well back home are no floods or tornados

Baby and the sun shines every day

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗥𝗜𝗢 𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗘 𝗩𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗬, 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗖𝗨𝗟𝗔𝗥𝗟𝗬 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗞𝗜𝗗𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗦𝗔𝗡 𝗕𝗘𝗡𝗜𝗧𝗢, 𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗔 𝗛𝗨𝗚𝗘 𝗔𝗠𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗧 𝗢𝗙 𝗥𝗨𝗕𝗕𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗢 𝗦𝗨𝗣𝗣𝗢𝗥𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗔𝗥 𝗘𝗙𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗧!

                             

    

Valley responds to the need of “Rubber”

San Benito kids led RGV in collection of much needed rubber

By Rene Torres

As WW II raged on, patriotism on the home front amplified with every pasting day. In July of 1942 a Valley-wide scrap collection of rubber intensified surpassing expectations. The stream of donations for the first two days almost reached 300,000 pounds.

The first day, which was a Monday, an estimated 100,000 pounds poured in and the following day 180,000 pounds. It revealed remarkably enough by not only adults, but almost by an amazing amount of RGV kids that participated in the war effort.

Some of the items that were collected included: nipples from nursing bottles, a pink elephant, eight brand new airplane tires, door stoppers, sink stoppers, and several household articles, but the most popular item were car tires.

San Benito kids led the way…

They were the “Big Seven” who were in relentless pursuit of the elusive rubber tires. Still attending their day work as Brownsville Herald carriers, they found the time to scan the city and did it in record time. Gathering 250 tires in a two-day period.

Who were they?

It was the contribution on the “Homefront” that also helped us win the war. The following kids from San Benito did their part… along many others. left to right front row: Grady Prestridge, Elfego Esparza, Howard Baker, Robert Witten, Abel Aguilar, Bobby Byrd, Frank Garza.

The work was directed by Circulation Chief T. B. Alexander of San Benito. He got his boys to ask subscribers for tires and other old rubber. They collected them in a stack near his home…. The effort was made without complaints and with the spirit of patriotism.

The Valley-wide effort was so great that additional storage was needed. The accumulation of items continued in gain and volume with every passing day. They left a legacy of nationalism for today’s generation to follow.

𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐄 𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐄𝐆 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐒 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐎𝐌 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐄𝐂𝐇 𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐌𝐏 𝐀𝐃𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

                                                                              

Pete Buttigieg

Hey, it's Pete.  Like so many around the country, I just saw something I didn't think that I would see in this administration; a United States Senator pushed to the ground and handcuffed after asking questions of a federal official.

What are we supposed to do about that?  Well, first of all we name just what happened, which is that the Trump government has crossed one of the reddest of red lines that can exist in a free society.

Any salute of the flag or talk of patriotism or American greatness is hollow if you do not respect the freedoms that our flag represents, the Constitution that directs the course of this country and they've shown what they think of those freedoms and that Constitution.

Now what?  Well, much will depend on the courage of members of the Senate and the House, especially Republicans.  This kind of thing is designed to make them more afraid.

Our job as American citizens is to make sure that they realize they have more politically to lose by riding the tiger of this out-of-control administration that will sooner or later eat them too than going along with it.  

That's going to take all of us raising our voices like never before so that something like this can never happen again.

𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓, 𝐈𝐌𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐌𝐏 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐀𝐖 𝐀 𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐔𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃𝐍'𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐄!

 

𝗚𝗢𝗩. 𝗔𝗕𝗕𝗢𝗧𝗧 𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗟 𝗚𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗗 𝗧𝗢 𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗟𝗟 𝗣𝗢𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗕𝗟𝗘 "𝗥𝗜𝗢𝗧𝗦" 𝗜𝗡 𝗦𝗔𝗡 𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗢𝗡𝗜𝗢

                                     

Artist's conception of an Abbott visit to Brownsville

Dim-witted Greg "Barbed-Wire" Abbott outshines almost all Trump suckups.  Just a pat on the top of the head by our convicted felon President sends the governor into a state of pure ecstacy. 

Abbott's latest monkey-see-monkey do move is ordering the Texas National Guard deployed to strategic points in Texas since that strategy worked so well in Los Angeles.  

Abbott adds a free civics lesson to the deployment, educating Texans that while "peaceful protest is legal," "harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest."  

Trump jumped all over what had been a mostly peaceful protest against immigration raids in L.A., hoping to escalate things by deploying the National Guard, then 700 U.S. Marines as obvious provocation.  

                                     

Abbott's self-professed Christianity on display at the border

Abbott can claim he's not simply mimicking Trump as the San Antonio Express has reported that Police Chief William McManus contacted state officials on Monday night seeking to "confirm" the presence of the National Guard in the city.  

Saturday looks to be a big news day across the U.S. as "No Kings" events are scheduled to combat aristocracy while Trump spends $45M on a Kim Jong Un style military birthday party for himself in Washington, D.C., wasting money some feel would be better spent on those Trump calls "losers and suckers," homeless veterans who've served our country in the military.   

                                     

Abbott meets Trump the Lord

𝟏𝟗𝟓𝟕~𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐊 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋

                                                                                     

Elizabeth Eckford walks through hostile crowd to enter Little Rock High School in 1957

     

Google is not going to mollycoddle me by just gifting me a list of "southern racist politicians." No matter.  I know most of them anyway, could write a paragraph or two on each from memory; Lester Maddox, George Wallace, Orville Faubus, James Eastland, Harry Byrd, Strom Thurmond.(Whenever I hear or read the name "Strom Thurmond," I automatically think of Lou Holtz, who was fired as Arkansas football coach by Athletic Director Frank Broyles thinking his one-time support of Thurmond would effect Arkansas' recruiting of Black athletes.)

Many of these southern racists were also anti-public school because of court orders forcing integration.  That tradition is now carried by Christian evangelicals, some of the most racist folk around, who now promote school vouchers to finance the schools they fancy.

                                  

Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus holding racist sign

I'll add J. William Fulbright to the list of racists, newsworthy because Trump is effectively ending the Fulbright Scholarship Program in much the same way he took over Kennedy Center Honors. (I fully expect Kid Rock, Lee Greenwood and Hulk Hogan to garner those honors next time around.)  Trumpism, academics and the arts don't mix well.

Fulbright was an oddity as one of the most outspoken opponents of the Vietnam War, but also someone who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  He got tricked, though, into backing the Gulf of Tonkin resolution after a U.S. ship was attacked, then watched as Tonkin became the underpinning for supporting the war.

I met two of the Little Rock Nine years ago, who, as high school students, were blocked from attending Little Rock High School as the racist Governor Orville Faubus called out the National Guard to block their entrance to the school.(Racist politicos are still misusing the National Guard.)

Now, with respect to the dismantling of the Fulbright Scholarship Program by Trump, here's what's been written:

"Effective immediately, members of the Congressionally mandated Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board voted overwhelmingly to resign from the board, rather than endorse unprecedented actions that we believe are impermissible under the law, compromise U.S. national interests and integrity, and undermine the mission and mandates Congress established for the Fulbright program nearly 80 years ago," the board wrote in its official statement.

"We believe these actions not only contradict the statute but are antithetical to the Fulbright mission and the values, including free speech and academic freedom, that Congress specified in the statute," the board wrote.

"It is worth noting that the awards that were overridden include studies in categories such as biology, engineering, architecture, agriculture, crop sciences, animal sciences, biochemistry, medical sciences, music, and history," they added.

But, back in 1957, while it was Governor Orville Faubus who originally brought in Arkansas National Guard to keep the nine Black students from entering Little Rock High School, President Eisenhower commandeered those guardsman and added 1000 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division to facilitate safe passage into the school.

Thanks Ike!